I Tried King Arthur’s 2024 Recipe of the Year
I am a big fan of King Arthur Baking Company. Not only do I collect their baking tools and trinkets like they are trophies, but I’ve also actually traveled to their bake school in Vermont and taken classes, all in an effort to learn some coveted baking secrets. So you can only imagine my sheer delight after finding out King Arthur announced a Supersized, Super-Soft Chocolate Chip Cookie as their 2024 Recipe of the Year. I immediately tied on my apron and began baking.
And it seems I wasn’t the only one; this recipe was so popular among home bakers that it quite literally broke the internet. The link stopped working for a few hours, leaving many bakers waiting impatiently for supersized, super-soft chocolate chip cookies. Thankfully, the internet brought this highly popular cookie recipe back to life, giving me enough time to try the recipe myself. And let me tell you — it was absolutely worth the wait.
Get the recipe: Supersized, Super-Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies
How to Make King Arthur’s Supersized, Super Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies
In a large mixing bowl, combine light brown sugar and table salt. Set aside.
In a medium-sized saucepan, heat unsalted butter over medium heat. Continue stirring until the butter starts to sizzle and brown — about five minutes. It should smell toasty and nutty, and the butter should have flecks of golden-brown in it.
Immediately pour the hot butter over the brown sugar and salt in the bowl. Whisk until the sugar melts and the mixture almost resembles smooth caramel.
In that same saucepan, heat up bread flour with whole milk, whisking constantly. The flour mixture will cook and become thick, like mashed potatoes. This is called the tangzhong starter. Immediately remove from the heat and add to your bowl of sugar and butter, whisking until smooth.
Add in large eggs, cold straight from the refrigerator, as well as pure vanilla extract. Whisk until smooth.
Next, add in bread flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Whisk until smooth.
Place the bowl of cookie dough in the fridge for 15 minutes. While you’re waiting, chop up semi-sweet chocolate wafers or bars. If you have chips, that’s fine as well — just make sure to chop them.
Once the dough has chilled, toss in the chocolate and mix together with a spatula until everything is combined. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 24 to 72 hours.
When it’s time to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Scoop out 1/4 cup of cookie dough (roughly around 85 to 90 grams) and roll it into a ball. Place it on the baking sheet, leaving enough room for each cookie to bake; you want to keep it to no more than 5 or 6 cookies on a baking sheet. If you want smaller cookies, measure out around 50 grams of dough per cookie.
Bake in the oven for 18 to 22 minutes. For smaller cookies, leave them in for only 15 to 18 minutes.
Remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool on the baking sheet for at least 15 minutes before devouring.
My Honest Review
There’s a reason these cookies have been crowned King Arthur’s Recipe of The Year: They’re perfect. They’re crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside, with the right balance of buttery dough and dark bittersweet chocolate. It is by far my favorite chocolate chip cookie yet.
While the tangzhong starter (cooking some flour with milk) may seem a little intimidating, the step wasn’t as scary as I originally thought, and it truly makes all the difference. The texture of these cookies is perfectly chewy in the way you always dream a chocolate cookie would be, and I know the technique of cooking some of the flour must certainly be the reason.
It’s definitely not a step everyone is willing to take, though. After just a couple days of this recipe being out in the world and many home bakers are skeptical of the steps this cookie requires. King Arthur themselves even called it “controversial” in a recent Instagram, thanks to the sheer comments the company has received.
Aging the dough was absolutely the right call for these cookies. Is it easy waiting an entire day to bake delicious cookies? Absolutely not. Was it worth it? 100%. I only waited 24 hours before baking, but it was still enough to give this dough that rich flavor and bake a cookie that is perfectly shaped.
Don’t be intimidated by how big these cookies are; trust me, it’s worth it. I measured out 90 grams for each cookie before rolling them up and baking. It took me a little longer. given I had to bake them in batches, but the texture of the cookies are perfect. I don’t think I would go any smaller, to be honest.
So, does this recipe deserve the coveted title of Recipe of the Year? I think you know the answer to that … yes!
3 Tips to Make King Arthur’s Recipe of the Year
Watch the video first: If the recipe intimidates you, I highly recommend watching King Arthur’s video of them baking the cookies first. It’s easier to watch someone do it and makes the steps seem simpler and a lot more manageable. It’s only 15 minutes long, but I think it will make you feel better before tackling the recipe on your own.
Use a mixture of bittersweet and semi-sweet chocolate: The recipe calls for semi-sweet chocolate, but the recipe video says you can use a mixture of the two types of chocolates in your cookies. This is the method I decided to go with, and for someone who loves darker chocolate, it was the perfect balance of sweet and bitter for my cookies.
Stick some extra chocolate chips on top: If you’re really going for the “wow” factor, I recommend adding even more chocolate chips to the top — un-chopped, of course. This gives the cookies that Instagram-worthy look that will have all of your followers drooling on their screens.
Get the recipe: Supersized, Super-Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies
This post originally appeared on The Kitchn. See it here: I Tried King Arthur’s 2024 Recipe of the Year, and It’s No Wonder These “Controversial” Cookies Crashed Their Website
